


The Course of True Love

by Inbredipus



Category: Original Work
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/F, Gods, He's not great with dealing with his emotions, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Taiga has been through some shit, Warning for Taiga's unhealthy thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 19:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13324821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inbredipus/pseuds/Inbredipus
Summary: The 5 times Taiga didn't say anything and the one time he did.





	The Course of True Love

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Taiga is not a healthy person, thought-wise. He's been through some fucked-up stuff. The tags are accurate. Be warned. Also, every scene occurs 2 years apart.

The smell of the circus was like a great tidal wave of life, heaving, breathing, screaming life. It reminded Taiga of the early days of his youth, back when he still ran around small alleyways barefoot, his feet still uncalloused by the rough stones of unpaved streets.

The circus was remarkably similar to the seedier parts of D’a’res, each part lit by a glowing sign in some new and exciting color. Every space was packed with people, each moving as one giant organism towards seperate goals, a hive mind with no connection. The stands were covered in too-bright pictures and words in a language that Taiga wasn’t familiar with, their owners yelling out at the moving mass of people, desperate to lure a straggler with sensitive ears to their shops. The excitement was fire in the pit of Taiga’s stomach, and he ran ahead of Tia’a, who was weaving through the crowd with the steps of a woman used to people parting so she could pass.

He ducked into a nearby tent, eager to catch some new and exciting experience. It was remarkably crowded, even by the standards Taiga was used to, being a child born in a massive city. The tent was well-lit, a change from the others, and had a large birdcage in the middle, big enough to easily hold several grown men. Taiga pushed through the throng of people to catch a glimpse, meeting each glare from an annoyed gawker with a huffed-out apology.

His heart stopped, and dropped, and rolled out of his reach.

Inside the cage was a person, probably barely older than Taiga’s eleven, whose pale wrists and ankles were bound with manacles that were obviously meant to trap, to contain, rather than to simply bind. They had skin that clung tightly to their fragile frame, the outline of their bones bringing memories of the corpses of starving children -some familiar, but many not- on the streets of his hometown to the forefront of Taiga’s mind. Their hair was dirty and matted, though Taiga could tell that it wasn’t dark like his own, and it hung limply as if it, too, had seen far too much to continue on.

The most startling thing of all, though, was definitely the wings. There were six, three pairs of two. They strained against the rusted metal of the cage, glowing with a pale blue light that made Taiga feel as if he needed to prostrate himself before them. They were each easily seven times as wide as the child they were attached to was tall, but their full majesty was kept in check by unrelenting bars, forcing them to bend in a way that seemed agonizing. As Taiga looked closer, he saw that parts of the wings glowed more dully than others, and some parts of the wings didn’t glow at all, as if they had simply given up. The wings twitched as if trying to bear a wave of pain, and Taiga swore he heard the breath of the caged child hitch.

It rent Taiga’s heart in two; from the tear spouted feelings that were oddly heavy on his shoulders. Before he knew it, he was speaking:

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” he said, his mind already working double-time to figure out how to get Tia’a to agree to such a daring rescue. She’d say yes, if he could get her to actually see the boy. She was soft like that.

The child, having apparently heard Taiga’s declaration, looked Taiga directly in the eyes. They had a strong set to their jaw, and their blue eyes spoke of a spirit like a coming storm.

If Taiga hadn’t been knocked speechless by his own emotional inexperience and by the child’s beauty, he would have confessed his love in a voice loud enough to rend the heavens. Instead, he nodded, and wove back through the crowd to find Tia’a.

—

Taiga’s head tried to process the words Tia’a was speaking, but the ache in his ass and the stinging in his cheek made it difficult to concentrate. He could never understand why people acted like sex was some great experience. It was always a bother to Taiga, always left him with pain and small blood stains on the sheets. This man had been particularly rough, as the injury on Taiga’s face reminded him. It was probably going to bruise.

That’s what he got for being such a little tease, he supposed. He really shouldn’t have worn those shorts. They hugged his ass too tight for most people to resist. Taiga looked down at his yellow shorts, slightly annoyed at the grass stains and dirt on the sunny fabric. He was going to have to pay a good amount of cash to get these clean, and he’d probably get them even dirtier while he earned the money.

“Taiga, cherié, look at us.” April’s voice snapped Taiga back to attention. April was leaning forward in her wheelchair, eyes twinkling with tears ready to fall. Tia’a was sitting on the couch closest to April, her lips pressed into a line so thin that Taiga swore it was going to break. “It’s not your fault, but you need to be ‘onest wiz us: ‘as zis ‘appened before?”

What kind of question was that? “Of course it has. I’ve been doing it since I was four.” He’d been told he was a damn good lay, too.

April’s mouth curled into an “O” and her hands gripped the armrests of her wheelchair so hard that her knuckles went white. Tia’a paled considerably.

Their response made his heart shudder. “What? It’s not like I didn’t want it.” His voice felt flimsy, his words untrue. He’d never questioned it before; it was good money, some of the customers were nice, and he was always such a good boy that he got full meals instead of table scraps back when he worked at the brothel. “It’s pretty normal.”

“No, it’s not,” Tia’a said, her voice heavy with an unbearable sadness. “It’s actually a crime to have sex with a child.”

Taiga snorted. He’d never imagined that Tia’a was so good with jokes. “Very funny.”

Tia’a didn’t respond. Nearby, Taiga heard April start to sniffle.

“Tia’a? You’re… You’re joking, right?”

Tia’a shook her head, face tight, and Taiga felt his heart creak under the weight of his past for the first time. He felt physically ill. Without realizing it, he had doubled over, his body racked with dry heaves. He heard April’s wheelchair come up next to him, and felt the static shock of her hands as she rubbed his back. His entire body felt as if it had been stained with ink. It wasn’t as if he had never felt like he was dirty, but the realization that everyone else wasn’t as dirtied as he was made his entire body tremble. He wanted to curl up and die.

Distantly, he heard the sound of Tia’a’s footsteps as she walked toward the kitchen, and then her noise of surprise.

“Ciel, how long have you been standing there?”

There was an awkward pause that was filled by Taiga’s lungs desperately trying to grab air as his throat convulsed. Tears were leaking down his cheeks with reckless abandon, and for a moment Taiga worried he was going to literally drown in his own tears.

“Since the part about the, erm.” Ciel’s smooth voice cut itself off abruptly, as if the idea was too disturbing for him even to stomach. “T-the stains on his shorts.”

The entire time, Taiga realized. For some reason, that made it even harder to breathe. The idea that Ciel had found out how dirty he was bit him in the back of the head and tore away a chunk of flesh.

He desperately wanted to ask Ciel if he hated him, to look up into those stormy eyes, deep blue like the sky on a clear day but with a storm raging behind them, and ask, no, beg, for Ciel to tell him that he wasn’t quite as messed up as Taiga thought he was. Instead, he closed his eyes and began to sob.

 

—

“I need to, I need to, Sola, you don’t understand-” 

Taiga stood a ways back, watching intently as Ciel sobbed into Solanacea’s chest. The storm around them had ceased throwing out lightning bolts, but had, instead, increased the strength of the rain into a nearly painful downpour. The drops felt like little needles in Taiga’s skin, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave his spot behind the tree. He felt like he was intruding on something that he shouldn’t be, but, damn it, he had been the one to find Ciel, so he was damned if he wasn’t going to stay to see how it played out.

Who was he kidding?

The reason Taiga was staying was the same reason he wasn’t showing himself; despite knowing that Ciel deserved far better than a stained wretch like himself, Taiga still clung to every second he could spend in the man’s presence. It had been that way since they met.

“I know, but you can’t rush it, right?” Solanacea’s soothing voice cut through the rain. “Your wings need to build up strength again.” She ran her hand along one of Ciel’s six wings, gingerly, almost as if she was afraid that the bright glow would burn her. The wing twitched, fluttered, then fell still again.

“But what if I never can?” Ciel was babbling, his voice muffled by snot and tears. “I can’t live without flying, Sola, I can’t, I can’t, I spent too long waiting to fly again, I can’t-” 

Solanacea held Ciel close to her, like she was trying to absorb every negative thought that was running through Ciel’s mind, and Taiga wished, for a brief moment, that he could take her place, kiss away Ciel’s tears. Taiga mentally slapped himself for that.

“It’ll be fine, C. I know it will.” She rubbed the back of Ciel’s head, messing up his dirty-blond hair. 

“But will he,” Ciel stopped, as though he had just caught himself before he said something he didn’t mean to, “will anyone want to be with someone like this? I’m broken, Sola, I’m broken.”

Taiga’s heart, bruised as it was, still managed to hurt a little more at Ciel’s words. He wanted to run out and tell Ciel how he wasn’t broken, how Ciel was the purest, most whole thing in the entire universe. He wanted to bow down before the mangled wings that hung limply off of Ciel’s back, and worship Ciel until he realized how important he was. Instead, Taiga walked away.

It wasn’t his place.

—

Taiga slipped into the house a little past two am, his head still lit up from the endorphins of the party. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep, he knew that much; still, he’d need to be quiet. The last thing Taiga needed was Aaron looking at him anxiously -as if Aaron looked at anyone any other way- and asking if he was alright. Taiga was always alright.

As alright as one can be when they’re as fucked up as he is, anyway.

“Taiga?” A fierce whisper came from the kitchen, and it nearly caused Taiga to shout in fright.

“What?” He whispered back, turning to face the kitchen.

Ciel was looking at him with an annoyed expression. His eyes were narrowed with disdain. “Why are you back so late? You’re freaking everyone out.”

“It’s just once,” Taiga replied.

“You’ve been doing this for the better part of a year, man.” Ciel shook his head, his loose blonde hair gently swinging to and fro.

Taiga gave a soft laugh. “Glad to know I’m important enough to you to keep track of.”

There was a small flicker of pain in Ciel’s eyes, as if he was hurt by the implication that he wouldn’t care about Taiga, but it quickly resolved itself back into general anger. “Taiga, seriously.” Ciel’s voice contained an unspoken warning, and Taiga supressed a shudder.

“I’m just doin’ my job, babe,” Taiga trilled, a sly grin tugging at his features. Ciel froze, and in the back of his mind, Taiga kicked himself for saying it like that. “I mean, I am the god of passion. I gotta do my title proud, and that means partying.” He gave an exaggerated wink. Ciel responded by rolling his eyes, apparently satisfied with Taiga’s response. That solved that, then.

“Still doesn’t explain why you gotta be out until the break’a dawn.”

Taiga felt his smirk slip for just a moment, unprepared for Ciel to keep talking, before plastering it back across his face. In that moment, the possibility of telling Ciel that he was staying out so that he didn’t fall any more in love with Ciel than he already had crossed Taiga’s mind, a pipe dream. Instead, he flipped Ciel the bird as he made his way towards his room, leaving the question hanging in the air like a noose.

 

—

The man snoring in the hotel bed beside Taiga had seemed better looking the prior night, but the harsh light of day always seemed to have a way of making Taiga feel disgusted with himself.

He could immediately see what had drawn Taiga to him in the first place -blond hair that fell slightly past his shoulders, a slight frame that still managed to be muscular- but when he compared it to Ciel, it all paled.

Every time he had a one-night stand like this, usually caused by his frustration over Ciel, Taiga immediately felt like he needed to scrub himself with a brillo pad until his skin bled. It was almost as if, simply by imagining that Ciel was his partner, Taiga had somehow dirtied him, and he couldn’t feel absolved of his sin until he had washed every speck of dirt off of his body.

The silence of the morning only served to intensify his self-loathing, and Taiga toyed with the thought of waking up the man he had slept with simply to have a distraction. He decided against it; it would be hard to say no to a guy if they were in bed together.

With that, Taiga slowly crept out of the bed, heading towards the small armchair that was set near the window. He never understood the purpose of that chair; it was in the same place in every single seedy hotel he’d ever stayed in. If a person wanted to sit down, there was a perfectly comfortable bed that wasn’t awkwardly exposed to the window like the chair was.

He sat down in it anyway, and picked up his phone from the nearby table, turning it over in his hands as he looked out the window. The sky was still barely blue, the horizon tinged with the pinks of sunrise. It stood in stark contrast to the industrial town that lay below it, all factories and small roads. With a slide of his finger, Taiga unlocked his phone. There were a few texts from Aaron about dinner -honestly, if Aaron was going to ask someone about what to make for dinner, he should really ask someone who slept at the house more than once in a blue moon- and a few from his various sex friends, each asking if he was free tonight. That was a decision he’d have to make after he’d had some coffee.

Taiga kept scrolling through his texts when, suddenly, the phone began to ring, and Taiga’s heart just leapt, before gravity cruelly forced it back down into the pit of his stomach, where it belonged. He knew the number -it was Ciel’s. Taiga had memorized it, because he refused to put the number in his phone and feel his entire soul squeeze whenever Ciel’s name popped up in his notifications.

But now, here he was, freaking out about the number anyway. It would only take a quick second to answer it, to hear Ciel’s voice over the reciever, and Taiga was tempted, sorely tempted, to answer, to just bliss out while listening to Ciel’s smooth, deep voice, to feel a little bit less like he was the most disgusting thing to ever take in oxygen. Instead, Taiga set the phone down on the table and made his way back to the bed, curling up next to the stranger he’d fucked last night in a desperate bid for warmth.

—

Chivato was a great bar to just relax in. There was no thumping music, no awkward grinding, and, best of all, the bar’s owner was aware of the fact that he shared his town with a number of supernatural entities, such as Taiga himself. It made the place perfect for just being.

The fact that James was a great listener as well as a great bartender certainly didn’t hurt.

Currently, Taiga was resting his cheek on the counter, watching Astris -no, he was Stella in the bar- hum the first few chords to “Hey Jude.” The man had a gift for music. Taiga was so captured by the performance that he almost missed the little bell above the door chime out a greeting.

“Oh, ‘sup, Ciel?” The voice of the barback, Alistair, brought Taiga to attention. He didn’t lift his head so he could actually see Ciel; the mere idea that the man was in the same bar as him was enough to set his nerves on fire. He had been lusting after Ciel for a decade now, and it felt like each passing year only intensified the attraction he felt. And with the attraction came the guilt, the shame, the feeling of being corrupted. He gave a small groan.

“Is something wrong?” James was standing in front of him, but Taiga waved him off. James made a small hum of concern as he turned to another customer, who had apparently taken the seat right next to Taiga.

“So, Ciel, what’ll it be?” Of course it would be Ciel. Taiga prayed to whatever deity ruled the gods that Ciel didn’t recognize it was him.

“Whiskey. Neat.” Ciel’s voice was gruff.

“Having trouble with that crush of yours again, eh?”

Taiga stiffened at the words, then berated himself. Of course Ciel would have crushes on people, that was perfectly normal. It wasn’t like Taiga had any claim to him, especially not with a body as dirty as his.

“Ugh, please,” Ciel responded in a voice that Taiga rarely heard anymore. It was tinted with annoyance, but there was something warm and longing beneath it. Jealousy stabbed at his chest, and Taiga willed himself to stay still, to not say anything that would make Ciel dislike him more.

“That bad?”

“I haven’t seen him in nearly a month.”

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Ciel let out a harsh laugh, almost like a bark. “What true love do you know that’s gone unrequited for a decade?”

“Well,” James let out a thoughtful grunt, “I think I know someone just like that.”

“Really?”

Taiga felt his breath catch in his throat.

“Yeah, my buddy Taiga over here’s been in love with some guy for ten years.”

There was a short pause, and the sound of Ciel clearing his throat. Taiga was debating whether or not to look into Ciel’s eyes, to proudly state that it had been him the whole time. It would be awkward, terrible, and there was a pretty good chance that Ciel was going to reject him in favor of someone else -considering Ciel had loved that person for as long as he had known Taiga, honestly, how had Taiga not noticed?- but, there was still a possibility, right?

For the first time, he fucking did it.

“Hey, C.” His voice was awkward, nowhere near as suave as it normally came out, and Taiga cursed himself. This was already going badly. Taiga steeled himself and made eye contact.

Ciel’s eyes were the same as the day they met, a storm behind a lens of clear blue. His face had changed since then, his jaw becoming sharper and his face becoming leaner, more masculine, but his eyes had always stayed the same. What Taiga hadn’t been expecting was the thin rose tint that was covering his cheeks, the way that his lips curled into a knowing smile. Taiga, ever the paragon of awkwardness, felt his brain glitch and seize up.

James looked between the two. “You know each other?”

Ciel didn’t take his eyes off of Taiga’s. “We met ten years ago.” Taiga willed himself not to turn red, he was the fucking god of passion and he was not going to turn red just from looking at the man he lo- oh, who was he kidding, he was as red as a beet.

The bartender stiffened as if he had just realized something, letting out a soft “oh.”

There was a moment of silence that felt like an eternity. Taiga dimly noted that Astris had stopped singing. It felt like the entire bar was holding its breath, though Taiga didn’t discount the possiblity that he was just extremely self-conscious.

Well, it was now or never.

“…and I’ve loved him ever since.” Taiga said, his voice feeling microscopic. He had to avert his eyes to say the words; it felt too intimate otherwise.

He felt a hand on his cheek as soon as he stuttered the sentence out. Ciel turned Taiga to face him, his face lit up with a grin.

It all clicked.

“Oh, shit,” Taiga breathed out. He felt like he was on fire, but it didn’t feel like actual fire- it was warm, and heady, and he wanted to drown himself in it.

“‘Oh, shit’ indeed,” Ciel said, and pressed their lips together with a fervor that Taiga hadn’t expected but that he was more than happy to return in kind.

In the background, he swore he heard someone yell “finally!” and, honestly, Taiga couldn’t help but agree.

**Author's Note:**

> This is from my largest universe, the same one that my other story "And Then..." comes from. Taiga, Ciel, Solanacea, Tia'a, and April are all god-like beings that exist as balancing forces for the universe. They each represent a species. Gods can be killed (each one has a destined way to die, and will usually figure it out at some point), and a new one will be reborn to take their place. Taiga, Ciel, April, and Solanacea are all reborn gods; Tia'a is an original god. Tia'a and April are married, and are the gods tasked with finding the newly reborn gods (they aren't the same person as their predecessor; they inherit the role, not the personality or looks). A lot of the gods were killed in a war with mortals (which started when the mortals found out that gods could die and decided to take revenge for gods causing suffering in the world - it was actually a very large misunderstanding involving the fact that "god" doesn't accurately describe their role but was the closest term humans had (most other species were generally aware of the difference but they were also mostly killed off by humans)). Taiga is a phoenix (they normally take human form, but when badly wounded will basically heal themselves by heating themselves and their surroundings to a temperature that will kill most things) and the god of passion and fire. When he was a baby, he was basically sold to a brothel. Since he grew up that way, he never questioned it and just assumed it was normal. When he was rescued by Tia'a (at around 9ish), neither really spoke about it (Tia'a is not good with emotions and April was an alcoholic at the time), so he developed some very unhealthy thought patterns after he realized that what had happened to him was Not Normal. Ciel is a seraph (those glowy things are wings), and the god of freedom and weather. His wings were damaged by his confinement as a child. Solanacea is a dryad, and the god of life and symbiosis. Tia'a is what is called a mechanis, and is the god of magnetism and knowledge. April is what is called a spark, and is the god of electricity and wisdom. James is just a human who lives near the village of the gods (it exists on multiple dimensions at once, and James lives in our dimension, on earth). Aaron (who is only mentioned) is what is called a sanguine, and is the god of fate and sleep.


End file.
